by Rynne Raines
Her mind raced. Her skin burned. Bianca sank her teeth hard into the rubber ball and shuddered. Every nerve in her body was alive with sensation. Even the arches of her feet pressing against the cool table aroused her. After an hour of sexual ascent and descent, she was certain it would only take Cade breathing on her and she’d burst into flames.
Bianca panted against the gag—the gag she had doubted in the beginning and now silently praised in her mind. Between one of their earlier intermissions, Cade had slipped off his shirt and unfastened his slacks so they slung loosely at his hips, revealing a pair of heavenly snug, black boxer briefs. She remembered her mind reeling with the idea of him fucking her in such a restrained state, but he’d had other plans, ones that included tormenting her further with his toys, his hands, his scalding mouth.
Now, as he stood with his back to her, she cast a lustful gaze over the lean muscle in his shoulders, along the masculine slope of his spine and wondered how much more she could take without feeling his cock inside her dripping pussy. Not much more. Although the effects of the aphrodisiac he’d used had nearly subsided, the heat he caused with his expert ministrations still had white hot flames licking over every inch of her.
“You did so good,” he murmured when he turned and carefully removed the gag from her mouth. “I believe you’re ready for punishment now.”
He couldn’t be serious. She glanced to the savage bulge in his slacks while he removed the restraints and knew this must be killing him. No man possessed this much self-control. No man had ever pleasured her for hours on end without release. No man except Cade Sinclair.
“How much longer will you make me suffer like this?” she asked weakly when the ability to speak returned.
“You hardly look to be suffering, angel.” He slipped his arm under her back. Merely the heat of his bare chest against her skin had her shuddering all over again.
The spanking bench he carried her to was covered in soft black leather. His arms felt so good around her. She didn’t want to let go of him when he set her down, knees first, and commanded that she lay across and grip the bar on the other end. But she did as he asked, knowing he wasn’t about to let her off without punishment, and that the reward would soon follow.
Bianca closed her eyes against the sensation of plush fabric pressed under her tingling breasts, then shivered. The bench was fashioned so her knees remained spread shoulder-width apart while her ass sat high and vulnerable. It didn’t take a psychic to know what was to come.
Even so, the moment she spotted Cade running his fingers through the laces of his flog, her heart jumped into her throat. She’d never understood why her body reacted so strongly to the sight of a whip in a man’s hand, but rather than question it, she merely accepted it, and right now, she would enjoy every glorious second of it. However, when she noticed him setting the flog aside, she frowned.
“Change your mind on that punishment?” she asked, keeping her eyes focused on the wall in front of her.
“In a manner of speaking.” He slipped one hand between her legs and she jerked when his knuckles grazed her ultra-sensitive flesh. “You enjoy it too much, it would hardly be punishment on its own.”
Before she could reply, he drew his slick fingers up between her ass cheeks and a moan tumbled out of her.
“Take a deep breath for me.”
On her long inhale he pressed something smooth and cool inside her ass. This time she was sure it was anal beads, another of her vices. The instant pressure had her pussy clenching. Her teeth set while a new inferno coated her skin.
“Another breath.” Patiently, he continued slipping the string of globes inside her, murmuring endearments along the way. But after the first orb penetrated her, his words had become distorted, and blended with the blood rushing past her ears.
“How are we doing, angel?”
“Oh, God,” she sighed. “I hardly feel I’m being punished at all.”
“Perhaps I’m losing my touch.”
“Perhaps you a—”
At the sharp sting of the laces snapping across her ass, Bianca’s breath hitched. There was no time to recover before they came cracking down again, the heat spreading into her pussy. The third time, the fleshy walls of her anus clamped around the beads. The quake that rocked through her brought a sob of arousal barreling from her lips.
“Then again, maybe I’m not.” He smoothed his palm over the small of her back, up between her shoulder blades, then back down again. “It’s about to get far more intense. Don’t forget to breathe for me.”
She panted through clenched teeth and fought against the orgasm. More intense? What could possibly be more intense?
The moment the string of leather cords branded down on her flesh, a long heavenly pulse of electricity rocketed to the tips of her flexed toes. Good God.
Breathless, Bianca gripped the bar above her head to prevent the oncoming scream. Those were no ordinary beads and that hadn’t been simple aphrodisiac earlier. She’d heard of the conducting gel before and had even been curious about how strategically placed pulses of energy would heighten one’s pleasure. Now she knew. Pure Ecstasy.
“Oh, God, again…please, again.”
With each consecutive lash on her backside, her anus tightened around the orbs, triggering another pulse. Unabashed and in her element, she tossed her head back and let the sound bellow out of her.
This was what she’d been missing—being able to let completely go with a man, one who understood her needs and was more than gratified to deliver. Cade wasn’t put off by her shameless abandonment, by the echoed screams of pleasure ringing in his ears. It turned him on. As much as she’d tried to deny it over the years since their parting, she yearned for the bond that only a D/s relationship provided.
She longed for Cade.
When she finally heard the flog hit the floor, Bianca didn’t open her eyes. She needed to savor this feeling, every blissful second of it. Her flesh stung with divine stripes of fire. At this point, she could orgasm by merely willing it. However, she wouldn’t. She wanted to climax with him inside her, wanted him to feel the contractions, the pleasure he was responsible for.
“Bianca,” He rubbed his palm over her burning ass cheeks. “Tell me why you haven’t you taken on a new master since we were together?”
Between the rich sound of his voice, his powerful hands, and the throbbing in her clit, she could hardly comprehend his words.
“W—what—oh, God.” She gasped when he slipped two fingers inside of her pussy and probed the orbs, rolling them with gentle strokes. He leaned over her now, his sweat-damp chest pressing into her back, his mouth tracing circles over the nape of her neck.
“I asked why you haven’t taken on a new master. It’s obvious your submissive needs have been neglected far too long.”
“I—I….oh, please don’t stop,” she begged when his fingers paused.
“Answer me and I won’t.”
Though her mind was a collection of frayed nerves and wicked thoughts, she managed a sentence. “I’ve just been too busy.”
He gently withdrew the beads. She wanted to curse at the absence of his touch, but she swallowed it down as he hooked his arms around her and lifted her to sit on the edge of the bench. The leather was smooth against her warm and tender backside, but the darkness in Cade’s eyes distracted her from the sting.
“If you’re going to lie to me,” And you are lying to me, Cade thought as he flexed his jaw and hesitantly brushed the back of his hand across her cheek, “then I believe we’re done here.”
The sight of her quivering bottom lip twisted like a blade in his gut but he forced himself to hold his ground. After the intimacy they had shared, he wouldn’t stand for more lies even if that meant having to walk away.
“Wait,” she demanded when he turned from her. “Please, just wait.”
Pain etched into her face and he wanted to cradle her against his chest, soothe her, but he stayed his hands. Her eyes shone like glass as the
y lifted to his. Shit. “All I want is the truth.”
She hesitated again, her slim pink tongue darting to the corner of her mouth before her teeth sank down into her bottom lip, but, finally, she spoke. “When I signed up for the masquerade, I’d honestly thought of it as seven days of great sex with a man who knew exactly what I needed and was more than happy to supply it. But it didn’t turn out that way. It was so much more to me. I—I couldn’t submit to anyone else after you. It didn’t feel right.” Her watery gaze shifted. “I just couldn’t do it, okay?”
A thousand angels crooned in Cade’s head and his chest constricted. The ache was the most excruciating he’d ever felt, yet, amazing at the same time.
“Pretty pathetic, huh?” She shook her head and started to climb off the bench but he forced her legs apart, stood between them and crushed her with his mouth.
Nothing tasted as good as her mouth. Nothing felt as good as Bianca in his arms. He drank of her lips like a desperate man stranded in the desert. His cock stirred as she clung to his shoulders and softened in his arms.
“Look at me, goddamn it.” He framed her face with his hands and shook her gently. “You are the definition of everything I want. You, Bianca Alexander, are…the only woman I want.”
Although her eyes clouded with unspoken words, he didn’t give her time to audibly form them. He was kissing her again and shoving his slacks down, then his briefs. One thrust and the warmth of her tight cunt sheathed his cock, his mind lost in the sound of her heady cry against his lips. Deliverance.
“I’ve had this hard-on since Chambers said you’d meet with me,” he murmured against her mouth, and plunged his tongue again.
“That must have been very painful,” she replied when he finally came up for air.
“Oh, you’ve no idea.”
With the second thrust of his cock, her fingernails dug into his shoulder blades so hard she surely drew blood, but he didn’t care. The pain triggered his primal instincts, urging the rotation of his hips, the slow grinding of his pelvis against her clit.
“God,” she groaned. “How could I have forgotten exactly how good you feel?”
“Apparently I wasn’t memorable enough.” He arched an eyebrow, drove his cock harder, and relished the short burst of sound that escaped her. “I guarantee you’ll remember this time.”
They moved as one unit. As if no time had lapsed, they fell into a familiar rhythm of shared emotions and sensations. Desperation and need. Battle and surrender. In the background, the light in the ceiling still buzzed but neither heard it—heartbeats pounding and labored breathing took precedence.
Bianca hooked her ankles at the small of Cade’s back and pulled his cock deeper. The head of his thick shaft slammed against the depth of her sex and she sank her teeth into his shoulder to muffle the cry. He was wrong, she thought to herself, in the midst of a building orgasm. He was wrong about the reason why she hadn’t remembered how good he felt inside her. She had locked the memory away in order to function and buried what she thought to be childish emotions for an unattainable man as deep as she possibly could.
But now, as he rocked his hips against her, raced his lips over her brow, her temple, down her throat, she set them free.
He wanted her. Only her.
Perhaps the last four years had changed his perspective on the need to have more than one woman satisfy him. Maybe the bond they shared was enough now. Regardless of the how or why, she didn’t care.
“Cade,” she choked. “I can’t stop it, I’m going to come.”
“God, yes, come for me, angel. Let it all go.”
The explosion was four years of pent-up frustration, of battling emotions, of hiding from what she really wanted. Her pussy pulsed around his cock and when he drew back and thrust again, her heart literally paused, waves sucking her under. She needed this connection with a man. With him.
On the tail end of her climax, she heard him swear softly against her hair and knew he was striving for control. But she didn’t want him to control himself any longer. She wanted him as out of control as she was. Desperate to push him over the edge, Bianca drew back and impaled herself on him.
“Fuckin’ hell,” he cursed against the soft spot of her throat, his grip on her ass tightening. Oh no, you’re not getting time to regain control, Bianca thought as he tried stilling her movements. She pivoted her hips, forcing his body to follow. His sweat slick shoulders tensed under her hands when he released a throaty groan. She knew that groan. The sound triggered her inner-walls to constrict, gripping his throbbing cock. His body quaked against hers for several minutes and Bianca savored every second. She closed her eyes in satisfaction. This is how it was meant to be between us, she thought wistfully. Always.
Sometime later, once the earth stopped spinning and the air became thin enough to breathe, Bianca nudged her nose against Cade’s jaw. “Cade?”
“Mmm?”
“You’re crushing me,” she whispered.
“Live with it.”
The laughter that bubbled out of her was uncontrollable. Never had she felt so at ease or so delighted at having her bones crushed by a giant of a man.
He finally sighed and loosened his death grip enough so he could look down on her.
“Better?”
“Yes.” But it wasn’t. Along with the five inches of breathing room came the bitter ache of reality. She stared at his sweat-damp chest and wanted to take back what she’d said, just to have him wrapped around her again.
“We should probably talk about—”
“Later.” He gripped her ass, hoisted her up against him and crossed the room. “We’ll talk later.”
Her annoyance from being cut off mid-sentence and carried around like a ragdoll dissolved into a tender ache when he kicked open a secret door in the wall. Bianca’s lips parted and a quiet sigh slipped out.
“Didn’t I mention, as part of your punishment, you’re spending the night?” Cade kissed her temple, lower, down over her nose, then seductively on the lips.
Later. They would talk later.
Chapter Ten
The bed was either too small or he was too big, Bianca decided as she rolled her stockings into a ball and spied Cade’s feet six inches over the edge. A delightful giggle tickled her throat, but she stifled it and shifted her gaze the length of the sleeping giant. He lay on his stomach, those powerful hips swathed in a sheet of navy satin, his dark, careless hair drifting across the pillow. From a distance, he appeared like some type of Greek God, with his tanned, muscular body and that hard, lean profile.
Definitely the bed was too small.
Careful not to wake him, she tiptoed across the plush cream carpet and kneeled beside the bed, while schoolgirl giddiness pulsed in her tummy. She folded her arms against the mattress and rested her cheek on top of them. The concentration lines from his brow were smooth as he slept, his mouth slightly open, revealing a glint of straight white teeth.
Bianca grinned so hard her cheeks hurt. He looked adorably boyish this way, she thought, as she fought the urge to slip back under the sheets and into his arms.
It was rare to see a sensual predator in such a vulnerable state, so she savored it.
While the evening hadn’t gone exactly as she’d planned, she didn’t regret it one bit. Part of her knew before coming to the club that ending up in Cade’s bed was inevitable. But, they hadn’t merely graced the sheets together last night, she reminded herself. They had bridged a gap. They had bonded at a level deeper than she’d ever known before, a level that was terrifying and surreal.
Though, in the heat of the moment, people said things they didn’t mean and made promises they couldn’t keep. She wasn’t normally a woman to mistake sex for love. She understood that often circumstances appeared different in the light of day, in contrast to the romance of a starry sky and playful shadows. But, as she remembered Cade’s tender words, regardless of how hard she tried to hold back, the wheels wanted to spin in that direction.
Sh
e got to her feet and pressed a hand to her abdomen. There was no point in speculating now. They would talk. Before she let herself get any deeper, they would talk. But not now. Now, she needed to get home, dash through the shower and get her ass to work.
After zigzagging her way through the corridors of Halo and making her way outside, she shielded her eyes from the burst of sunshine. In a moment of dizzy satisfaction, she tilted her head back and closed her eyes. The warm rays washed over her face. Although it seemed silly to allow one night of sex turn her into a believer in true love, she didn’t let herself over-think it.
“Beautiful morning, ain’t it?”
Startled by the voice, and by the fact she must have looked like a lunatic staring into the sky, Bianca gave herself a quick shake and pinpointed the sound.
“Oh, yes, it is…um…I’m really not insane,” she explained as the unsatisfied customer from last night leaned against the rustic brick building, a slim cigarette clasped elegantly between two fingers. “I was just…savoring the sunshine…that’s all.”
“Don’t have to tell me, honey. I’ve been there.” Karlie took a long pull on her cigarette, then exhaled a long stream into the hair. “Our Cade is quite the sweet talker.”
Uncomfortable with how she’d said, ‘Our Cade,’ Bianca wrapped her arms around herself and tried to make light of it. “Right, you know Cade.”
“If by know, you mean blow, then yeah, I know him.” A loud snort carried from the young beauty as she crushed out her smoke. “The key is not to get attached. Made that mistake myself in the beginning. Oh, wait a second,” She clucked her tongue. “Too late, it’s written all over your face—can’t fault you for it though. I’ve seen him put stars in the eyes of prettier subs than you and take ‘em for a ride. No offense, of course.”
An invisible fist slammed into her gut. As much as she tried to shake it off, she couldn’t. “I—I really need to go. I’m going to be late for work.”
